Manufacturing Engineer - Mechanical Engineering

About Etched

Etched is building AI chips that are hard-coded for individual model architectures. Our first product (Sohu) only supports transformers, but has an order of magnitude more throughput and lower latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents.

Job Summary

As a Manufacturing Mechanical Engineer at Etched, you will own the mechanical manufacturing side of our AI systems, ensuring seamless product introduction from prototype through high-volume ramp. You will collaborate with hardware, electrical, ASIC, and reliability engineering teams to drive manufacturability, yield, and cost efficiency at scale. This role focuses on enclosure and system-level design-for-manufacturing (DFM), tooling and fixture readiness, mechanical bring-up/debug, and sustaining improvements across the full product lifecycle.

Representative projects

• Lead NPI and sustaining engineering activities on the mechanical side, from proto builds through volume ramp.

• Drive Design for Manufacturing (DFM) reviews for mechanical parts, enclosures, and cooling systems to ensure scalable and cost-effective builds.

• Partner with Suppliers, CMs, and ODMs to qualify new materials, processes, and tooling.

• Perform tolerance stack-up analysis, fit checks, and DOE/EFA studies for critical assemblies.

• Work with hardware and thermal teams to optimize mechanical design for cooling, reliability, and manufacturability.

• Own tooling, fixtures, and process validation for mechanical subassemblies and system integration.

• Support yield improvement and cost reduction initiatives, including material/process optimizations and cycle time reduction.

• Review and influence Process FMEA and Design FMEA for mechanical systems.

• Develop, release, and maintain product documentation and manufacturing specifications.

• Provide leadership in complex issue resolution and supplier technical capability development.

You may be a good fit if you have

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in mechanical manufacturing or product engineering.

• Proven experience in enclosure/system builds, thermal design integration, and mechanical DFM.

• Knowledge of manufacturing processes including CNC machining, sheet metal, die casting, plastics, and cooling solutions.

• Hands-on experience with CAD/CAE tools (e.g., Creo, SolidWorks, or similar) and GD&T practices.

• Strong problem-solving skills with focus on yield, manufacturability, and cost optimization.

• Experience collaborating with suppliers, CMs, and ODMs on mechanical part qualification and ramp.
  Familiarity with process validation, DOE, and reliability testing.

• Strong communication and teamwork skills to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

Benefits

• Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with generous premium coverage

• Housing subsidy of $2,000/month for those living within walking distance of the office

• Daily lunch and dinner in our office

• Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both as needed.